The article caught my attention. The criticism of Jim Lehrer's moderation efforts for the Romney-Obama debate has been interesting. So far it has broken mostly into partisan camps, Democrats negative, and Republicans neutral or slightly positive. When your guy under-performs, it's natural to complain. The chief conservative complaint has been the “leading questions” by to help a foundering President Obama.

Between Express-News staff writer Roy Bragg and the named experts, Uravic and Linden, the opinion seems to be that the moderator should have been more in control of the debate. I thought the debate was great. It was more spontaneous and conversational than any I can remember in many years. The debate is not about the moderator; it's about the candidates, their ideas, and their ability to communicate to the voter.

According to the Dukas PR website, Linden prefers clients “to speak in sound bites.” Is that really what one wants to watch in a presidential debate? There is too much of that already in politics. Linden also had trouble with Lehrer enforcing the time limits and felt it gave Romney an advantage, even though President Obama spoke for over four minutes longer.

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This is not a scholastic debate club. In years past, I've watched moderators who were openly hostile, disdainful and dismissive of one candidate or the other.

I've watched moderators pursue their own agendas by narrowing the scope of questions or even presenting statements disguised as questions. It was refreshing to watch a debate where the moderator got out of the way and let the candidates actually debate.

As Syria bombs Turkey, our Libyan ambassador is murdered alongside other brave Americans, and violence in the Middle East in general escalates, it is heartening to hear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton inform us of her outrage, her intentions to closely monitor the situation, and to stay in close contact with her Middle Eastern contacts.

I am quite sure there is sufficient “outrage” and “monitoring” to go around among the thousands of innocent people being slaughtered as we express our concerns, as we “strongly” express our outrage. It seems Washington is much more preoccupied with expressing outrage than taking any meaningful action.

From where I sit, I would rather they ignore this senseless slaughtering than try and convince us they have any plans or capacity to actually do something about it. We're not stupid.

As a retired kindergarten primary teacher, I have read the articles on Pre-K 4 SA with great interest. Years ago, when I began teaching kindergarten, we had a half-day introduction to school routines for social, emotional and intellectual development. Children learned to share, count, recite the alphabet, get along with each other and obey school rules.

Some years later, when kindergarten added subjects such as beginning reading, science and social studies, there was a great need for the pre-K experience.

Since Texas has a law that a child of 6 must be in first grade, it is a great opportunity for San Antonio voters to approve Pre-K 4 SA and help our children be better prepared for the academic life.

Joan Sauter

Value of education

In a recent column, New York Times writer Thomas Friedman stated: “The unemployment rate today is 4.1 percent for people with four years of college, 6.6 percent for those with two years, 8.8 percent for high school graduates, and 12.0 percent for dropouts.” And the Republicans intend to slash funding for Pell Grants and other education programs?

In his letter responding to the Express-News article, “Texas cities, counties piling up debt,” Richard Trench makes a feeble effort to tie Mayor Castro, President Obama and Democrats in general to all the government debt problems. I guess Trench forgets that many of these same “Texas cities and counties” in debt are led by Republicans. And he forgets that obstructionist Republicans in Congress have done everything possible to stop the president from succeeding during his first term. Trench concludes, however, that this issue is a “main reason to vote Republican.”

I would like to respond with more than one reason to vote Democrat: Save Medicare ... Fair Taxes ... Save Social Security ... Care for our veterans ... End gridlock in government... Save our public schools ... More American jobs ... Pass the ‘Dream Act' ... Protect Women's Rights ... Clean Air and Water ... Affordable Health Care ... Improve Roads and highway funding ... Secure worker's rights ... and promote world peace.

George Rodriguez is correct with regard to the pre-K plan. What's next? A pre pre-K plan for 2- and 3-year-olds? The San Antonio mayor is just another power-seeking pol. I'm 89, and I've heard a lot of them, pols that is.

Since most military personnel are conservative, perhaps the military voting percentage would be dramatically increased if they were all informed that not voting is the same as voting for their current commander-in-chief.